


Booking It

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Books, F/M, Fluff, Libraries, after return of the jedi, based on a prompt idea, fluff where the worst thing that could happen in the galaxy is a missing book, sometimes you just have to write something warm and happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-05 22:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17333417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: Cassian Andor, former Rebel spy, is now quite happily settled in as Fest's first librarian. Everything is going smoothly, until one day, his favorite book goes missing... little does he know a certain Jyn Erso is to blame.Based on a prompt request from friends in the RogueOne Discord. It's fluffy and sweet and more than a little full of dorky love for libraries. Enjoy!





	1. Chapter 1

It turns out that there aren’t a lot of jobs for a former spy in the New Republic. Or rather, there aren’t a lot of jobs Cassian would remotely __enjoy.__ K-2S0 has told him enjoy is too strong a word, as Cassian doesn’t enjoy __anything__. He’s told Kay that he’s sure he would enjoy __target practice__ with a growl. But that simple exchange led to a memory, of someone else saying those words, of someone else… long gone from his life. Because if there are few jobs for a former spy in the New Republic, there’s even fewer for the supernova of ferocity she is.

On his way in to work that day, he spares a moment for her, and hopes she’s happy, wherever the hell she ended up. He also hopes she’s not in jail, which is probably less likely.

But that small moment is all he allows himself, before he punches in the code to open the staff door. He sits down, keys into his system, and opens the files that hold all returned data-sets. Each one needs to be re-indexed and re-uploaded into the system. It’s mundane, repetitive work, much like decoding messages had been. Granted, this work goes a little quicker given that no one is shooting at him while he’s doing it.

On the other hand, when it comes time to process the physical returns, that task almost always makes him want to shoot someone. People drop off not only their used holobooks, but garbage, other books, and force-only-knows what else, into the bin. Once he found a droid’s arm. That had led to him tracing down the rest of the droid, and repairing them. Which, for better or worse, led to his office now having a droid as well. D3W-EY will be in shortly, Cassian knows, but they’re better suited to the reference desk. Cassian doesn’t have the patience for stupid questions.

If he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t quite have the patience for this task either. He glares at each returned holobook, inspecting it for damage, before putting it on a cart. The rules are simple. You’re supposed to to turn the holobook off, replace its protective cover, then return it. No one ever does that.

 _ _Your talents are going to waste,__ someone had said. Maybe commander Organa. Maybe Mon Mothma. The voices of the past tend to blend together these days. __We could use you in the Senate.__

He doesn’t want to be in the Senate. He doesn’t want to be anywhere close to the stuffy core worlds. He’s happy… as much as he can be, out here. It’s good work, he’s decided, to run the first library on Fest.

It’s one of the small inativies that the Senate has started, tiny little inroads of peace and prosperity across all the Outer Rim planets. Last he’d heard, Bodhi was doing work on Tatooine, setting up schools for all children, while Baze and Chirrut were assisting with settlements on Yavin IV.

Life moves slower, in peacetime, he’s realized. It’s counted, not by missions and sleepless nights, but by shelves of books and days spent cataloging newly donated titles. The collection is small, since he insists on having every title be a bilingual one, providing Festian or Galactic Basic with the toggle of a button.

The library’s most treasured holo book, at least for him, is one with a database of maps for all of Fest, including the pueblas and factory towns now destroyed, a result of both the Clone Trooper’s bombs and the Empire’s malice. It’s a holobook that unites people. He’s seen parents use it to explain to their children where their families once lived, helped elders use it to study maps to find their way back home one last time, lent it to those who are returning to Fest because it is the land of their blood, but not one they have ever lived on.

And he himself reads parts of it, once a week, while he sips one small glass of Tequil, the liquor his father used to have on the last day of the workweek. It feels… nice. To have a job on Fest, to have a home here, and to be closer than he’s been in a lifetime to his family.

Because the holobook also bears an author’s name on the cover: Evita Mariana Andor.

His great-grandmother, apparently, was quite the map-maker, and pilot, according to her author’s notes.

Today, though, his mind is far from that, and busy re-shelving the various items that make up the library. It’s the one day of the week the library is technically closed, which allows him time to catalog and clean things. Ordinarly, K-2SO would have come with him, but the droid decided to take an oil bath today instead. So, Cassian works for a few hours, before he notices just how cold it’s gotten. His fingers have gone a little numb, and he drops the latest datachip he had been trying to shelve.

What the kriff was going on? He pulls gloves out of his coat pocket, shoves them on, and heads toward the front of the library, away from the dark stacks of shelves he’d been organizing. Cassian is glad that the library sees so much use, he just wishes people were a bit better at following a simple alphanumeric sorting pattern.

 

The cold chill in the library only gets worse as he approaches the front door… because it’s been left open. He swears, low, and his hand goes to the blaster at his belt. Had some old enemy tracked him down?

“D3W-EY?” he calls, low, hoping the silver droid simply forgot to close the door, but that doesn’t seem likely.

There’s no response.

He moves, slowly, behind the reference desk, using its curving support as a shield. All his senses are on high alert, and he’s waiting, waiting, for any motion, any sign of whoever had broken in. There’s nothing.

Cassian finds the security device he’d installed, and starts to press through a few different codes, all while considering the scene. Whoever had broken in must have had the door codes, or else an alarm would have been triggered.

Which is… unusual. The sensors show no signs of movement, no organic life in the library, beside him. So, whoever it had been… is gone?

There’s a chance it could have been a droid, but that’s less likely. There’s few droids that can both handle the cold on Fest and move silently. It’s why even Kay is prone to more oil baths. The chill and the winds are terrible for motors.

So, whoever it was came in, then left. Which meant… Cassian runs through another code, asking the system to catalog every book in the system, trying to see if something was taken. The process will take a few minutes to run, so he makes a slow sweep of the library, checking every dark corner.

No one’s here.

Next, he checks outside.

The datapad to provide the keywords to allow entry has been sliced. And quite well, he has to admit, by an absolute expert. So, who could have done that?

What slicer would bother with a library on Fest?

His wrist comm beeps with the results of the scan. One book is missing.

And it’s the one book that matters more than any other.

He curses. Those maps matter more than the rest of the damn library. His brain races, trying to guess who might have taken it… and then, he notices a lead so utterly simple he’s sure it must be a trap.

There’s footsteps in the snow, leading to the library, and then, away. He’s sure anyone with the skills to slice into his lock isn’t stupid enough to leave such an obvious track, and yet… what other leads does he have.

“Kay?” he comms. “If i don’t check in with you in ten minutes, come after me?”

“Are you about to attempt something stupid?”

“No?”

“You are a bad liar.”

“So are you.” Cassian retorts, and ends the comm discussion. Even if K-2SO had been more than a little right.  

* * *

 

How dangerous could this thief be, if they’ve left their tracks? Unless it’s a trap, a lone operative out to hunt him down… No. that’s impossible. He’s deleted Cassian Andor from every record file, removed himself from even the narrative around the Death Star plans. He only exists here, in his library and his simple house, on the planet that he’d been born on, and then abandoned in order to save.

Cassian follows the footsteps, which lead to one of the smallest shelters in the village. Cassian takes in the rough shape, runs a quick infrared scan. One person. He runs another set of codes through his scanner, and hears the soft beep that confirms there’s one book in the shelter, one book that has not been properly checked out of the library.

Well, that answers that. He presses against the door, and it swings open. Every bit of his old brain screams that this is a trap, a terrible idea.

The book is on a small table in the one room cabin. Flames from a hearth illuminate its surface. He steps forward…

And is promptly met with an elbow to the gut.

His breath wheezes out of him, but his body reacts, reaches for his assailant. The fight is short, and proves just how slow he’s gotten in these past few years, as the smaller, faster person pins him to the ground.

Then, he looks up, for the first time, into the thief’s eyes. They’re the most peculiar, bright shade of… “JYN?” he demands, his voice hoarse.

“What the hell did you break in for?”

Yes, definitely Jyn. Her dyed purple hair and new ear piercings do nothing to hide the sound of her voice from him. It’s that same combination of Core-world class and sharp scorn, that same silk-wrapped-blade that always cut him so deeply. Not that he ever told her.

He’s had plenty of time to think about all the things he could have told Jyn, while he’s been alone in the library. Once or twice, he’s even shared the stories with D3W-EY, who offers sympathetic beeps. D3W-EY, apparently, spends a lot of extra time in the holo-romances, and often suggested various dramatic plans for Cassian to go and win Jyn’s heart… which he thanked the droid for graciously, but ignored.

And yet, here she is, alive, healthy, and still quite excellent at hand-to-hand combat. “Why did you steal a book?” he counters.

Out of all the things he might have told the woman who’d stolen his heart, years ago, that might not have been the best of things. But, it’s accurate, and he’s much better at being accurate than being romantic.

She’s finally let go of him, though her knees are still on either side of his hips, trapping him to the ground. There’s also a vibroknife in one of her hands. D3W-EY’s stories never go anything like this. When long-lost friends reunite, there’s always hugs and sometimes kisses, and at least according to D3W-EY, someone usually has a secret baby they haven’t told the other about. Or a fuzzy pet of some sort. D3W-EY once told Kay that the probability of a couple falling in love is directly proportional to how fuzzy one’s pet animal is, at least according to the stories. If true, Cassian had said, then why wasn’t every base in the Alliance deeply in love with Captain Solo, based on that damn Wookie?

D3W-EY promised to read even more romances for more data points on the topic. The friendly little droid had also suggested that perhaps Captain Solo had a tragic past, which suited him more for pining after one lost love, and not seducing entire bases. Cassian had countered that in that case, every single person in Rogue One must have a legendary lost love… realized what he had said, and promptly changed the topic, asking D3W-EY to run stats on the most common animal found in children’s holobooks instead. That turned out to be a tie between banthas and porgs. There was one book about Rancors, which honestly baffled him only slightly less than the number of romance holonovels featuring muscular Mandalorian warriors with secret engagements to princesses. As he’d told his patrons, Cassian cataloged and shelved the books, he didn’t necessarily read them.

But D3W-EY’s words about lost loves, about secrets, about meetings of fate and happenstance had crawled deep within his heart. He’d caught himself, more than once, heading toward the holoromances, and each time talked himself out of reading one.

Reality isn’t a holonovel, after all. Long-lost friends or almost-lovers don’t hold secret passions for each other, not unless they’re lazer-brained idiots, like he thinks he might be becoming. That brief fight was enough to show him how different he is now, how easily he can be taken down. His old wounds, the limp that came after Scarif, impacted him more than he’d admitted while in the Rebellion. Now, there’s no hiding from his earlier weaknesses. Retirement, of a sort, had come for him early, and he’ done his best to accept it.

He’s pretty sure that’s not the case with Jyn. Her clothing is dark, simple, and clearly made for combat, which tells him what she’s been up to in the years since the war has ended. She’d always said she’d want to be a bounty hunter, and it seems like she got her wish. A waste of talent, he thinks, and had told her so. Which was right around when they’d stopped talking to each other.

“I need that book back,” he says, aware that he’s spent too long staring into those eyes that he’s gone years without thinking of, except in dreams and that one time he did read a holonovel about sea-witches who enchanted innocent soldiers and lured them to a watery grave. In his defense, he’d thought it had been nonfiction about Mon Cala’s residents. D3W-EY had suggested next time Cassian pay more attention to the title as _Drowned by Delicious Deep Desire_ did not correlate very highly with other non-fiction selections.

Jyn snarls, “What are you, a kriffing librarian?”

So, he sets his jaw, his expression cold like he’s receiving a mission briefing. Pride colors his voice as he says, “actually, yes.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jyn stares down at him. There’s a scar over her quirked eyebrow, making the expression all the more stark, more foreign to him. She hadn’t had it the last time they’d seen each other. Nor had she had half the armor now pressing against him. It made sense in a way. Peacetime made him seek out books and her find battles. “Really?”

“Do you think I’d lie?” the words slip out, too fast, too sudden. Maybe it’s all right. Maybe he’s the only one who remembers what he’d told her. But based on the way a moment’s hesitation flickers on her face, she remembers too.

At that Jyn rolls off him. Without her body pressing against his, the universe shifts back into a more functional, a more sensical reality than what had just happened. He is cold, for the first time ever on Fest, and shivers.

“A librarian.” She shakes her head as she adjusts her gear, then, as he clambers to her feet, she adds, “They would have made you anything you wanted.”

“No, they wouldn’t.” Because it turns out, after the war was done, after the peace treaty had been signed, the one thing Cassian had wanted, was long gone.

Until now.

“Jyn,” he starts, just as he notices her picking up the holobook. The one that’s provided hope to so many Festians, shown them where their families lived, helped them find new homes. “I need that book back,” Cassian says. It’s just like her to hold onto the one item his library needs the most, the one irreplaceable thing. Just like her to not let go. Because she’d taken something from him once, something he hadn’t known he even still had, something dusty and broken and barely beating. No. That isn’t exactly how it had happened. Jyn’s stolen many things in her life, but not that. It had been Cassian’s fault. He’d offered his heart, as fractured, as dark, as it was.

And he’d never found a way to get it back.

“Why?”

“It’s important to the community.” As important as she had been to him. The book carries maps, memories, hope, and by the end of the war, Jyn had been all those things to him. A map of the future, a collection of good memories, and hope. So much hope. But he’d fucked up. Somehow. Hadn’t said the right thing, or anything at all.

 _I’ll never lie to you._ He promised, that night on Echo Base when they’d finally found each other again. _You mean too much to me._

 _Then come with me._ Jyn had twisted her fingers into the collar of his jacket, had begged him to leave with her, not to wait until the bitter end of the battle.

But he hadn’t. Because as much as she meant to him, until the war ended, he couldn’t promise himself to her. He could only hope for a future, not offer her one. Some stories, Cassian had told D3W-EY, are lived out in the long quiet moments offered to you by a cold room, a silent ship, an empty bed. Those stories, too, made up of moments of gossamer wishes, those are only re-read in dreams. Cassian’s story of his future with Jyn had been one of those. One more story on the shelf of all the lies he’d told himself, ever since he’d been a boy and told himself that Mama was wrong, that Papa would be home any day now.

But at least, D3W-EY had beeped back at him, at least you _lived._

Cassian is less sure of that. If he’d been the type to really live, the type of hero real stories get written about, he’d have said something, anything to Jyn.

Now, he finds, he has one more chance, and no words to offer. None but to stupidly repeat, “The book, Jyn.”

Jyn runs her fingers through her hair. “I’ll consider it.”

“It’s not under consideration. I need it.”

Her next maneuver is to turn the book on. The green-blue light flickers for a moment, as she sorts through pages, her lips pursing together. Maps flutter in the air, each one reflected in her eyes. He tries not to look, but it’s like trying not to hold his breath when his ship leaps into hyperspace. There’s that same inevitable, impossible, terrifying pull, that same knowledge that this next moment could destroy him or take him to a better place than he’s ever been before.

They’d traveled down some good paths together, he tells himself. Chased happiness like it had a bounty on its head. Captured tiny moments of joy, tiny smiles shared in crowded meeting rooms or a warm cup of caf held between chilled hands on base. But nothing more. He’d never kissed that brilliant smile of hers. Never took her callused, beautiful hand between his own to keep her warm. If their lives together had been a star chart, the only route he’d known to follow had been one of friendship, of silent pining, of the right words coming to his mind hours after the moment passed.

“I’ll give it back to you after I find the treasure.”

“The what?” Cassian shakes his head, blinks. But she’s still standing there in front of him. Dressed in black, with armored padding covering her shins and arms, and with the edge of a tattoo peeking out from the collar of the shirt. The tattoo is new too, as is her hairstyle, shaved close on one side, and longer on the other. The asymmetry, he thinks, suits her. He wonders if he should tell her that. But he… he can’t. That chance is long gone. Better to stick to current events. “What treasure?”

“The one these maps show. I got a message from an informant. Told me there’s a big bounty on Fest, a book full of maps of old Separatist gold.”

“I’ve never heard such a ridiculous... Jyn? A treasure map? What… what in Force’s name are you thinking? We’re not in some dramatic classical tale. There’s no buried treasures left in the galaxy.”

“I can think of some.”

“Well, I can’t.”

“It’s just like you, isn’t it.”

“Hmm?” he asks, as softly as if they’d been talking back on Home One, as if it had only been a few days since they’d last spoke.

“This book.”

“No?”

“It’s all facts and figures. Maps. Data.” Jyn flicks the book off, leaving the room darker and her face cast in shadow. “You never were one for stories, were you?”

Stories? What did he know of stories? He knew of dossiers, of weaving together a new identity from a carefully crafted set of lies, but those weren’t stories. A story didn’t kill like a spy did. A story couldn’t hurt you.

Or maybe it could. Maybe Jyn is more wrong than she realizes. Hadn’t this pain, this ache inside of him, come from a story? From imagining the ten thousand different ways they could have chosen to fill their chapters, the limitless number of better endings they could have had? “I do prefer non-fiction.”

“Really? Even after all those speeches you used to give? All those impassioned talks of hope?”

“I think you’ll find,” he steps forward, reaching for the book. “All of my speeches, all of me, now exists only in history books.”

“Nah.” Jyn leans back, blocking him from getting to the book.

“Don’t make me quote my own biography to you.”

“As if I don't know it already.”

He swallows, and for the first time, looks away from her. Her? Know his biography? How could she? Maybe the state-sponsored one, the nice, neat little byline he gets in history books, explaining his work for Operation Fracture, his aid in various other missions. But other than that? How could she know more, when he’d never let her in?

D3W-EY had told him he should start journaling or perhaps write a memoir-with-names-changed, in order to better process his past, at least to the point where he didn’t get emotionally frozen after hearing certain Festian children’s rhymes in the library. D3W-EY also had pointed out that Cassian could make money penning any number of his spy-stories, or at least, if he had them published, he could read _those_ and stop complaining about all the inaccuracies found in spy thrillers written by civilians.

Now, Cassian almost wishes he had written an autobiography, just so he could quote it at Jyn, prove that she knows nothing about him, not really. “I think you’re wrong.”

“Am I?” Now it’s Jyn’s hand reaching out. Not to pin him down, not to steal anything from him, just to cup his cheek, her thumb gently brushing over his jaw.

He’d been wrong. Because now, he finds his breath quite stolen away. “You don’t know me.”

“You’ve been in the fight since you were six years old. You retired from the Rebellion as a General, and turned down the Medal of Honor they’d wanted to give you. You came back here, back to where you were born. Because you’re still fighting, only now, you’re fighting your past, instead of fighting for a future.”

“Jyn…”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but,” _but you left so much out. So many things I’ve done. So many things I’ve never said._ And yet, somehow, she’d managed to summarize him, his work here, better than anyone else had.

“But what?”

“It’s not true.”

“If it’s not true then you’re a story, aren’t you?”

“Every story I know is a tragedy."

"Even ours?" Jyn's lips turn up into a small, secret smile.

"Wasn't much of a story, was it?" Cassian retorts, ignoring how nice it is to hear the word _ours_. Boy meets girl. Girl tries to leave. Boy ruins girls life. Girl succeeds in leaving. He knows there's other bits, the good bits, as D3W-EY would say, but right now, he can't remember any of them. Just waves crashing on the shore and her leaving, again, for the last time.

“C’mon now, Library-Master,” Jyn’s hand travels down, resting on the back of his neck. “You really think our story’s over?”

“I…”

“You can’t skip ahead and read the ending for this one.”

“How? Wait.” That’s a habit of his he’s never told her. One that he’s not sure even Kay knows. One that’s based on his desire not to waste time on any story with a pointless or nonsensical resolution to its conflicts. One that surely Jyn’s never seen him do. In fact, the only one who has is… D3W-EY. “How did you know that?”

She doesn’t answer for a long moment. “Maybe you should search me. Isn’t that what a good spy does when he needs more information?”

Something is short-circuiting in his brain, a loose wire sending pleasurable, terrifying bolts of pleasure through him, preventing him from processing this moment at all. “Search you?”

“Mm.” Jyn’s other hand finally lets go of the book. A small part of Cassian’s mind urges him to reach out, take the book, and run. Maybe even run away from the library, from Fest, from everything. Go deep into space, hide forever, hide from…

From all the longing that courses through him like the dancing lights in the night sky here, beautiful and so, so, impossible to have.

Because now Jyn’s other hand is on his hip, her fingers tugging at his belt loop, pulling him closer. “Or,” she says, in a voice as soft as sniper fire, “if you’re a librarian now…”

“Yes?” he’s leaning closer to her, he can’t help it. Pulled in by that wild magnetic force she’s had for him for so long.

“Maybe you should _check me out.”_

His groan at her pun, at her terrible pun, because he’s forgotten that’s her story’s style, to find a moment of brightness, a bit of light in the dark, vanishes when her lips meet his. His hands finally know where to go. Not for the book, not at all, but to her, to her waist, keeping her there, freezing her in the moment, holding her the way Fest has held onto him.

There’s a beep that sounds more like a delighted sigh, somewhere nearby. They both pull away, hands going to weapons. Jyn’s batton deployed, Cassian’s hand on his blaster.

“Who’s there?” Jyn demands.

“I scanned the whole building,” Cassian mutters to her.

Another beep, this one a little more nervous. And much more familiar. Cassian lowers his gun, though he doesn’t holster it. “Show yourself.”

Nothing but a faint rustling answers him. Cassian’s gaze flicks in Jyn’s direction. “How’d you hear about the book, Erso?”

“Oh sure, I kiss you and then I go back to being Er--” Her words melt away, as this time, it’s Cassian pulling her close for a second kiss. Something so reckless, so wild, he really isn’t sure if it’s him at all. Maybe he’s taken over someone else’s story. Someone braver, better than him. Or maybe… someone had helped re-write the one he’d gotten stuck on.

Because he’d _definitely_ heard a beep that time. “D3W-EY.” Cassian says, flatly, despite the racing beat of joy inside him. “You better not be recording this.”

Finally, with three sad little chirps, the droid in question slides out from the corner she’d been hiding in. Cassian shakes his head, but there’s no malice, no tension even, in his words. “You… you brilliant little mastermind.”

“Mastermind?” Jyn asks.

“Meet D3W-EY.” Cassian waves the hand not holding the blaster at the droid. “Who I’m guessing is the one who told you to steal the book. And mentioned my habit of reading the endings.”

 **A very bad habit,** D3W-EY replies. **And yes.**

“Smart little droid, aren’t you?” Jyn moves and crouches in front of D3W-EY, patting her silver case. “How long have you been planning this?”

**Since the day he stated he is still in love with you.**

“D3W-EY!” Cassian snaps, heat rushing to his face.

But Jyn just looks up at him, and finally, finally, her smile is as bright as the one in his memories, as true as any tale can be, as wonderful as any happily-ever-after. “That so, Captain?”

“Not a captain. Just a librarian.”

“Hm.” Jyn stalks closer to him. She takes his blaster from his hand, sets it on the table. Then, swoops in, and kisses him, once more, this time in a way to leave nothing unsaid, nothing unclear. “I think it’s about time this librarian,” she whispers, pressing a second kiss to his cheek, her hands finding his, squeezing tight. “Stops trying to skip to the end of things, and starts living in the moment.”

“And I suppose this is where you tell me bounty hunters excel at that?”

“Oh absolutely.”

Their foreheads rest together for a long, long moment. Countless moments flash before him, a thousand futures, now spent together. He wonders what Jyn will think of the library, if she has a favorite book. He’d translate it into Festian for her, he thinks, and hopes that she’d like that too.

**I am content with this story now, thank you. I will go.**

“D3W-EY!” Cassian shouts, turning to face the droid, though he doesn’t let go of Jyn’s hand. Doesn’t plan to anytime soon, either. “Thank you. For….”

**For writing you a better ending? My pleasure, Cassian.  I look forward to your next stories.**

“You better," Jyn comments. She's kept her fingers tucked around Cassian's beltloop, as if she's scared  _he's_ the one who might try to book it out of here, escape, hide from all these unknown futures. Maybe before now, he would have. But he's had a chance to be alone, and although it's a good life, a fulfilling life, he still wants to try the life offered by that kiss, too. "Because you're gonna be in them, too, buddy."

**Me?**

"Nah, the other mastermind library droid hanging 'round here."

**Appreciate the compliment. I knew you would be a good fit, here, based on the e-holobooks I noticed inside your datapad.**

Cassian's eyebrow lifts, impressed but not surprised at his friend's ability to slice into a datapad. After all, she's gotten quite good at cutting patrons off from using the library's dataconnection points for... unsavory types of data transfer. But he can't help asking, "oh yeah? Like what."  
  
"Hey!" Jyn elbows him.

"Given your own tendency to slice into things..." Cassian is still amazed, as amazed as when someone returns a book earlier than its due date, when Jyn kisses his cheek in reply.

**I quite enjoyed the selection of what I consider the classics. Two Lightyears Notice. The Two GentleWooks of Vex Major. Sense and Force-Sensitivity. My Best Pilot's Lifepartnering.**

At that, Cassian lets out a deep groan.

"What?" Jyn asks. He's at least rewarded by the face she's blushing deeply. "Shut up. I've got a lot of dead time in space, and they're entertaining."

"I... uh, thought I might, offer to translate your favorite book into Festian. For the library here." _For me,_ he wants to say. F _or a reason for you to stay._

  
"You should." Jyn squeezes his hand. " you're stuck with me for a bit. 'Cause it seems like your library needs a guard, and I could use a job."

"It's a deal then."

"A happily ever after?" she elbows him again, until he spins her into one more kiss. If he could learn to live in peacetime, if he could learn how to shelve books and process returns, how to deal with patrons who only remember one word in a seven word title, then, he can learn how to do this to. 

 _No,_  he thinks,  _a new story just beginning_.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and to Rogueshadows for the beta.   
> PLEASE don't use my comments as a way to trash other ships or tell me what ships to write <3 I'm a happy little multishipper whose favorite Cassian ship is Cassian/personal-fulfillment-and-happiness :) Trashing my other ships/trolling me/everything that happened with the last chapter means... less chance of future RebelCaptain fics from me.  
> Anyway, all positive comments welcome!

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on a prompt discussion within our RogueOne server! All of you who participated, thank you! (also tag yourself in the comments or DM me and I'll get you properly added in the notes)  
> Special thanks to ANTchan for the beta.


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